Welcome to RenderMan for Houdini 22!

This new release of RenderMan for Houdini 22 (RfH), includes a number of new features to address feedback as well as many improvements to RenderMan for Houdini workflow and performance. Many parts of the plugin have been completely rewritten to improve integration into Houdini and simplify workflow.

"The Unsullied" by Dylan Sisson, rendered in RenderMan for Houdini

What's New

INTERACTIVE RENDERING

Now you can render through all stages of your pipeline! From modeling to final renders, RenderMan is designed to give you immediate feedback. By skipping the export of a scene to RIB, artists can get an immediate look at their work in full ray traced mode and continue to interact and make changes without needing to restart the render.

HOUDINI CONTROLS

Care has been taken to use the standard Houdini controls and menus when possible. Your options for light linking, grouping, and more follow the workflows you've known from Houdini.

THE PRESET BROWSER

The Preset Browser allows you to import and export materials from both Maya and Katana's Preset Browsers, simplifying asset sharing and scene management.

TEXTURE MANAGEMENT

The Texture Manager now parses your scene and prepares the textures for you automatically! Additional options let you set global rules for processing.

CENTRALIZED CONTROLS

The ROP node has been reorganized and old options removed, reducing your choices to make images to the important controls you use every time.

AND MANY MORE...

• Added pxrwireframe, pxrswitch, and pxrshadedside hdas
• Updated PxrMarschnerHair hda
• Now support pre-transforms, "keep position when parenting" parameter, and input independent transforms
• Allow automatic creation of intermediate directories for output display path
• Change to render shelf button for IPR rendering. Renders at current frame rather than frame specified by ROP and renders to mplay or "it" depending on "ri_ipr_device" parameter
• We now override Houdini curve basis with RenderMan parameters
• Updated parameter ranges and default LPE expressions
• We now support User Color creation in RfH
• Invisible geometry is no longer evaluated for rendering
• We now obey focalunits

• Fix issue with scale of lights in light rigs from the preset browser not being correct

• Supply stereo offset and stereo depths parameters on the camera
• Alembic xform motion blur now applied at SOP level
• We can now render interactively from pxrmaterialbuilder digital asset
• Added autocrop option to openexr, deepexr, and tiff display options
• Removed error when stopping render
• Add options for the ri_lensshader
• OSL user options added in the ROP node, Batch OSL execution is defaulted to on
• pre/post render and pre/post frame script attributes should now work on RIS and denoise ROPs
• The Preset Browser in RfH now correctly remembers added libraries
• Renamed BUILDARRAY to DYNAMICARRAY
• Fixed correctness of forcing/candidate subnets
• PxrCollect has been removed, added PxrMaterialBuilder to be used in creating material networks
  

  • The preset browser will now put the material network inside a PxrMaterialBuilder node when importing a material asset

  • Exporting materials to the preset browser now requires a PxrMaterialBuilder node to be selected

  • Shader Shelf buttons create and populate PxrMaterialBuilder
• We now support multi-channel OpenVDBs
• APIs are all updated to the release versions of 16.5, 17.0, and 17.5
• Obey Object Tab's candidate lights/objects when starting IPR, but edits during IPR will restart the render session
• RenderMan ROPs renamed to distinguish them more clearly
• Read shop_materialpath attribute on instances (previously only read for face sets)
• We now apply material or transformation overrides to packed Alembic archives
• RfH now supports creating SHOP procedural nodes from args files
• Geometry with changing topology should now motion blur correctly when velocity is present

• The Denoise channels have been removed from the UI. RfH will add these for the user when Denoise is turned on

• The master of instanced geometry can now be hidden using the usual Houdini display flag, without hiding all the instances
• Added an "As Archive" checkbox under the RIB tab of the RenderMan22 ROP.  The RIB that is written is usable as an archive, via a PxrDelayedReadArchive procedural SHOP
• The default RIB format is now binary. This can be changed under the RIB tab of the RenderMan22 ROP
• On versions of Houdini that support it, Mplay is now launched with the appropriate OCIO LUTs enabled
• Pxr Light colors are now reflected in the light color guides in the sceneview

We are hard at work to create the best experience for RenderMan 22 with Houdini. Here are some of the changes to Beta 4:

• Fixed crash when packing geometry

• Instancing primitives now works

  • Point attributes set through AttributeWrangle nodes now apply to instances as expected

  • Fixed a crash that would occur on instanced geometry when the point instancer contained attributes that had no data in them
• Light filters
  • PxrLightfilterCombiner has been fixed
  • PxrBlockerlightFilter now renders correctly
• Various fixes to the lights UI and parameters
• Various fixes to solve crashes when using portal lights
• We now ignore warnings about non-RenderMan lights

• An issue with the preset browser that would cause Houdini's hython to exit prematurely has been addressed

• PxrVolume density float primvar defaults to density correctly
• Added a fix for subdivision surface normals being emitted incorrectly
• The "About RenderMan" text box can no longer be edited
• The Capture RIB while rendering capability has been added
• Various Pxr Pattern nodes have had their user interfaces cleaned up and updated
• Fixed a crash when creating OSL shaders from Houdini nodes
• Fixed a bug that prevents the alpha channel from being displayed correctly with Mplay
• Interactive Rendering allows artists to manipulate their scene and get immediate feedback on their choices
• Improved integration into the Houdini menus and options
• Simplified output and AOV creation
• Use Emissive Volumes as light sources with PxrVolume
• Enhanced Light Selection speeds up rendering for scenes with many lights
• Automatic texture creation
• Preset browser integration
• Interactive rendering in the Scene View with Render Regions
• PxrSurface Layering
• AI Denoising from Nvidia in "it"
• Full integration with "it", interactive cropwindow and object selection
• Force candidate nodes and lights now works as expected
• NuPatches now render correctly
• Continued improvement to preset browser
• Automatic texture conversion
• Material Layering is now available
• Auto light creation during interactive renders
• Interactive rendering of VDB dagta now works
• RIB output/batch rendering from RIB with VDB data now works
• When RenderMan 22 is loaded, RenderMan 21 is disabled
• Denoising of renders during batch processing now works (as a separate ROP node)
• Fixed a bug with texture coordinates that could cause a crash
• Improve user experience where light filters automatically reference VOP
• Added patterns to the submenu for VOP parameters
• Spare RenderMan parameter names have been changed. Parameters need to be reapplied to OBJ nodes. (See Warning)
• Fix a bug that provided input parameters for PxrVisualizer integrator
• .oso shaders found in $RMAN_SHADERPATH are automatically converted to otls, and stored in $HOUDINI_USER_PREF_DIR/otls/rfh_osllib.hda
• Added transformation and deformation motion blur (see Known Issues)
• Added support to render emissive volumes as light sources
• Fixed a bug where primvar attributes (eg: Cd) are not set correctly on packed instances
• Added a node to support RenderMan procedurals (see Known Issues)
• Added autorender, cropwindow adjustment, and object picking from the "it" image tool
• Added support for interactive render regions in Houdini's Scene View window (see Known Issues)
• Fixed a bug where a portal light's referenced dome light would not be found
• Custom SOHO parameters are no longer overwritten by RfH
• Light linking via the light bank interface now works

Known Issues

• PxrMaterialBuilder cannot currently be exported as a digital asset
• Applying undo of deleted nodes or collapsing to subnet may not work as expected
• Interactive Render Regions may require adjustment to start rendering
• Rewiring subnet indirect inputs
• No error messages when OSL shader fails to compile
• Auto camera creation for IPR
• RenderMan clipping planes
• If a light instance's master is disabled, the first render/update will still show the master

Known Limitations

• Tractor Integration
• Rendering with Mantra lights
• Bypassing shader nodes
• Rendering with Houdini VOPs